The data base that was breached seems authentic—though
only Apple can confirm. However, the
structure and format of the data indicates that this is a real breach. It would be hard to fake such data.

What is new about
this hack?

There are two things interesting about this attack:

Shows a
new angle on hacktivism—This breach resembles a new innovation by
hacktivists. Specifically, they targeted
an individual in the same way government-sponsored hackers (a.k.a., APT
hackers) would attack. Sure,
Anonymous/Lulzsec targeted HB Gary in the past but we haven’t seen this type of
attack reappear until now. Is this part
of a broader trend of hacktivists expanding their attack methods? Could be.
For example, the recent Saudi Aramco breach used malware, a type of
attack not normally associated with hacktivists.

This attack
was not pre-announced—Normally, hacktivist attacks are pre-announced, often
an Operation [FILL IN THE BLANK]. Doesn’t
seem to be the case here.

What can hackers or
FBI use this data for?

If the hackers have what they claim, they may be able to cross
reference the breached data to monitor a user’s online activity—possibly even a
user’s location. To be clear, the
released database is sanitized so you cannot perform this type of surveillance
today. But with the full information that
hackers claim to have, someone can perform this type of surveillance. This implies that the FBI can track Apple
users.

What scams can we
expect?

How many people will get infected “finding out” if their
apple device was one of the 12 million?
Here’s one blog that already points you do a site where you can “check”
if your creds were stolen: